Just curious to see what everyone here would think of my vid displays.
They're built out of a lot of old tech with some new updates (about an 80/20 ratio). Each one is self contained and plays automatically when booted. The vid is on either a USB Stick or SD card (avi).

Thank you. I've been gathering a pile to make a couple of VK units. I've almost got enough. They won't be the same, since I try to use as much salvage as possible, but they'll be similar. Will most likely make an "eye" machine like Chow was working with, vat and eyes included.

[quote="DVD Connoisseur"]Amazing work - would love to see your take on a Blade Runner Vid-Phon.

I did a gig in Chicago 2 yrs ago were the Cyberpunk cube was shown the first time. (the one w/4 screens) A couple of guys from the Oprah studios popped in. There were early 20's had no idea where the vid feeds were coming from or how it worked. Nothing in their education had, apparently, taught them the history of the tech they worked on. The cube was feeding two other displays and that just mystified them.

It's my living (such as it is). So anything I make is for sale. http://retech.org feel free to pop me an email.

Nexus7 wrote:

Amazing stuff, man. I've worked in TV for over 25 years so I really appreciate the cool stuff that you've done here. Any pieces for sale?

Thank you. I like using the fresnels whenever they fit the design. Obviously each one ends up changing based on my materials. The best ones are from old overhead projectors. Nice degree of magnification as well as good thickness on the plastic.

I don't use a set screen size. Again, whatever is at hand. Without a guide, I suppose these all look the same, but they're varied. The cube uses 5", 2.5" and a 1" crt. If that helps. I think the largest screen here is a 5.5" crt the smallest being that 1"

Mr Webber wrote:

Amazing designs, congratulations.

I really love how you used the plastic lenticular lense to great effect on the one in the third picture.

Also, you look to have made/found the absolute perfect size and shape main monitor that goes in the VK machine, please tell us more.

5" portable tv. Just like the others. The cube is only 14"x11"x13" no way I could fit a projector in there. If you used a pico projector... well they suck because their lumen output is so low.

All the units run off of some manner of SD card or USB stick player using AVI files (noted above). Standard def vid since a tv is effectively 640x480 rez. Hooked up with RCA jacks via the side (see above photo).

Buch wrote:

VERY cool indeed!

A couple of questions..

Is this one from an old overhead projector? Or where does this screen come from... it's very close to the one on the VK!!

How is the screen hooked up? And what do you use to transmit the image?

Very interesting and thanks for sharing the details... I've been looking into screens and different ways to transmit video when I researched for building a working VK... I used Raspberry Pis to play and transmit the video feed...

I know I'm asking a lot of questions... sorry.. this is just very exiting... but how do you get the videos to play automatically when you boot??

retech wrote:

Cheers.

5" portable tv. Just like the others. The cube is only 14"x11"x13" no way I could fit a projector in there. If you used a pico projector... well they suck because their lumen output is so low.

All the units run off of some manner of SD card or USB stick player using AVI files (noted above). Standard def vid since a tv is effectively 640x480 rez. Hooked up with RCA jacks via the side (see above photo).

Buch wrote:

VERY cool indeed!

A couple of questions..

Is this one from an old overhead projector? Or where does this screen come from... it's very close to the one on the VK!!

How is the screen hooked up? And what do you use to transmit the image?

I would love to use rPi's but I don't want to be tech support for 20 yrs. For me, they're art pieces. So I want something someone takes home and it just works. I've used a few different types of card players. With any electronics, they all have about a 5% failure rate. After that though some work better than others but there are trade offs, signal noise, temperamental interfaces, looping or non-looping, heat, cables, etc. Just depends on the build really. It's funny because that one new component I end up using is far more problematic than the old tech I salvage. For that, it's either working or not. It's already been through the ringers, so the ones that failed are long since gone.

For an installation, I'm working with a few programmers so that I'll have a more advanced unit. The "eye" will track people locking onto their face with facial recognition. Another set of screens will be showing data that's scrapped from whatever public signals the viewer's phones are broadcasting. So for those, they'll have internal systems. But that's the rare exception for me. When they're done, I imagine I'll just scrap them.

Buch wrote:

Sorry I totally misunderstood about the projector...

Very interesting and thanks for sharing the details... I've been looking into screens and different ways to transmit video when I researched for building a working VK... I used Raspberry Pis to play and transmit the video feed...

If I were to pick up the research would it be ok to contact you with a few technical questions?

retech wrote:

Cheers.

5" portable tv. Just like the others. The cube is only 14"x11"x13" no way I could fit a projector in there. If you used a pico projector... well they suck because their lumen output is so low.

All the units run off of some manner of SD card or USB stick player using AVI files (noted above). Standard def vid since a tv is effectively 640x480 rez. Hooked up with RCA jacks via the side (see above photo).

Buch wrote:

VERY cool indeed!

A couple of questions..

Is this one from an old overhead projector? Or where does this screen come from... it's very close to the one on the VK!!

How is the screen hooked up? And what do you use to transmit the image?